It's good to see you back, @SLB!
It rained a little overnight, but we aren't getting the major gullywashers that are hitting farther to the west. The wind is supposed to get strong today, though, so we've closed the back deck for warmth and wind protection. At least it isn't foggy. Although I grew up with fog at Christmastime and have rather missed it, two days has been enough. Besides, fog-with-desert-brush just doesn't smell the same as fog-with-orange-groves. Can't have everything.
Last night's dinner was the essence of simplicity: scrambled eggs with cheese and some of the Christmas ham. We invoked the "it's New Year's somewhere in the world" principle and went to bed early. I made it to East Coast New Year's, at least, but didn't try watching the ball drop.
If I'd wanted to watch it, I probably wouldn't have had enough bandwidth anyway. The New Year's revelers have come out in force, some miles down the road, to party and ride their dune machines. They're having a grand time, and when we went for water yesterday we could see that much of the desert near the dunes was occupied with clusters of trailers.
I suspect that hundreds or thousands of us are all trying a use a communications tower designed for a few dozen. So much for high-speed internet!
